In a detailed conversation, poet Madhu Raghavendra speaks about his literary journey, finding space for politics in his poetics, the inspiration of art and bhakti in his work, and more. By Chittajit Mitra

Poem by Hiranmayi Krishnakumar: ‘There’s a chair by the window / waiting for someone who doesn’t arrive / in this version. / The cushion sinks on its own. / It has good memory foam. / The fan spins like it’s trying to erase the century.’

Poetry by Mary Tina Shamli Pillay: ‘Pressured through the / mist, we are tormented / by the sharp blue sky, / the muffled din of a / wailing child, the crackle / of a hostess, the wrapping / unwrapping of smiles.’

Poetry by Prashant Pundir: ‘You are who I love, handmaking woolens, handmaking hope, handmaking this life, you who, with your tiny legs, walk to all the medicine stores and dog shelters and government buildings, saying: I REFUSE TO SPEAK A LANGUAGE PIROUETTED IN HATE AND ANGER’

Poetry by Goirick Brahmachari: ‘Love is like the wild lilacs, white / Apple trees over green meadows, / Riverstones I have walked over / For years— splattered, irate, broken.’

Meena Kandasamy’s collection Tomorrow Someone Will Arrest You is poetry as resistance literature, where aesthetic beauty and political activism merge to challenge a nation’s conscience. By Amritesh Mukherjee

Poetry by Vinita Agrawal: ‘The valley hums every summer— / the murmur of a year’s worth of wounds. // It seems nature remembers / what we’ve have tried to bury.’

Poetry by Devika Mathur: ‘Curtains fall from dawn to dusk. / A river to see her face. / Shining clouds bring flowers to her. / An admirer of nightingales and lanterns.’ 

Poetry by Paromita Patranobish: ‘A comet catches fire, she knows / It is her plexus exhaling / The ghost of trauma, / This is the closest she will / Come to maternity’

Poetry by Jyotish Chalil Gopinathan: ‘Pressing my ear to the ground / straining to hear / the universe speak. / The faintest tremor / of the butterfly wing’

Poetry by Anushka Chavan: ‘Will you drag me onto the shore, or should I become the tide? / Will you bring me home, to the river, / Or will I be lost in the hills once more?’

Poetry by Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan: ‘somewhere, / in the quiet / of this new world, / a new rhythm / begins to hum.’